HOME Secretary John Reid has ordered an urgent review after a BBC documentary claimed a criminal on early release staying at a bail hostel was left free to murder despite concerns raised by staff.

The undercover investigation also showed a convicted paedophile and child killer staying at the same premises in Bristol befriending children.

Another paedophile was filmed taking pictures in a busy shopping centre and loitering around public toilets.

Mr Reid said: "These are serious allegations and I am totally committed to protecting the public."

The Panorama programme, Exposed: the Bail Hostel Scandal, is the result of a five-month investigation into two hostels in Bristol, both housing high-risk offenders.

Hostel managers admit that once offenders are out of the building they have no idea what they are doing.

One senior worker is secretly recorded saying: "We can keep an eye on them until they walk to the end of that path, once they turn left or right we haven't got a clue what they are doing."

The documentary features the case of Davidson Charles, 41, who was staying at a hostel in Brigstocke Road when he murdered taxi driver Colin Winstone, a 44-year-old father-of-two.

Charles, a convicted armed robber, had been out of jail for just seven weeks when he stabbed Mr Winstone through the heart. He was later jailed for life.

Evidence

Panorama recorded staff at the hostel claiming they warned the probation service about him re-offending but nothing was done.

One staff member was recorded saying: "That taxi driver should never have been killed... We provided his probation officer with enough evidence to recall him."

The documentary also features claims that criminals were pimping and shoplifting to pay for their drug habits despite staying in a hostel supposed to specialise in weaning offenders off drugs.

It is also said that staff are often left to deal with criminals with mental health issues and histories of prolific or violent crime without proper training.

The programme says Charles was supposed to be under monitoring and supervision at Brigstocke Road when he murdered Mr Winstone in January last year.

Another resident of the same hostel, a paedophile convicted of killing a child, was filmed by Panorama repeatedly returning to flats where he had befriended a group of young mothers and their children.

Programme makers said they called the police about his activities but the probation service was not informed.

Panorama says that another offender, James Long, jailed in February this year for the murder of 45-year-old Scott Marshall, had been a resident of Ashley House, a second bail hostel, when he carried out the killing.

Mr Marshall's three-year-old son Abraham was left in a flat with his body for three days before friends and family became concerned and he was found.

Other residents of Ashley House are witnessed in the programme going out while on heroin and stealing around town to fund their habits.

Mr Reid said: "I have asked Andrew Bridges, the Chief Inspector of Probation, to urgently review whether there is a case for an investigation of the management and operation of the approved premises mentioned by the programme."

A spokesman for the Home Office criticised Panorama for not handing over tapes of the programme to authorities in advance and claimed it had refused the offer of an interview with the chief executive of the National Offender Management Service.

But the BBC said it had already interviewed an official responsible for hostels in Bristol, and had a request to speak to a minister turned down.